


Teeth

by pentaghastly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They called you Stark. No one ever believed you really were, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teeth

They called you Stark. No one ever believed you really were, though.

It wasn’t that they didn’t like you -- you were their Northern princess, the crowning jewel of Winterfell. But you knew what they said behind your back, even as a child you knew. Red and blue and vibrant, too naive, too weak, too foolish.

Silly little girl, head filled with a dream. They didn’t whisper as quietly as they thought. They were the silly ones; you heard every word they said.

Arya was their true wolf, reminding them so much of your Aunt Lyanna. _‘She’s got the blood of the North in her,’_ they would say, and smile and laugh. Mother told you it meant nothing, Father told you that you were as brave and strong as any, but you know it’s not true. You’re fragile and innocent, a flower blooming in an icy wasteland. There’s no place for you hear. There never will be.

You tried so hard to be the perfect daughter. Your needlework was flawless, your manners were that of a little princess. You did as you were told, without a question asked. But the North wanted rebellion, wanted courage and danger, and those were things you could not bring.

One day you would belong. One day you would go to a place and everyone would stare at you, not because you were strange or different, but because you were just right. 

Do you remember the first time you laid eyes on Joffery? Of course you do -- how could you forget? You had thought he was the most handsome boy you had seen in your life, but that was only part of what made you love him so (or whatever twisted version of love you had concocted for him in your mind). It was the way he had looked at you, not like you stuck out, but like you fit in, like you were not a foreigner in your own home. He made you feel a part of something for the first time in your life, and you thought you must have loved him for it.

Four years later, and all you can do is laugh at you pathetic you once were.

It never ceases to amaze you how much can be taken in such a short amount of time: simply, what was there is no longer, and all that you had you will never have again. Happiness is no longer an option for you, nor is freedom. You wish you took advantage of those long ago.

The nights are cold and long when you spend your days on a seat of stone with a ring of bronze around your head. There is no sister that you can call to share your furs, so you keep yourself warm by speaking to the air, hoping in the back of your mind that somewhere out there, someone can hear you.

You talk about the state of the castle, how you feel that it is crumbling apart in your hands. Your throne sits atop an ever-growing pile of corpses, the walls of the city built with the flesh and blood of the dead. The people wandered the streets aimlessly, their bodies wasted away until they were nothing but skin and the bones underneath, a persistent hunger clawing at their insides, eating them alive until there was nothing left to eat. It’s falling apart and all you can do is watch.

Sometimes you remind yourself of the years prior, about things you did during war time. About the time you chopped off your red curls with a dagger to see if you felt a thing when they fell to the floor in a pile that, out of the corner of your eye, could be mistaken for a flame. You didn't.

You tell yourself that someday you’ll remove the crown and your red hair will fall down to your hips once more, that you’ll hold a child in your arms and raise Winterfell to glory and your husband will stand by your side, not small and weak but strong and true, a man like your father, a man like Jon and Robb and Sandor, and you’ll tie your daughter’s hair in ribbons and teach your son to be a warrior, just like his Lord Grandfather was.

The maester tells you you’ll never bear a child. You pay this no mind.

And years later, when the castle rises strong again, when the North is yours to hold, when your children run around the yard and the people have food and life and the slightest ray of hope, they will ask you when your fangs came in, and you will tell them that they have been there the whole time.


End file.
